


Learning To Love You

by satincolt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Fluff, Galaxy Garrison, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Male Character, Trans Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 13:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12133941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satincolt/pseuds/satincolt
Summary: Somehow, Keith Kogane manages to go from "unruly, troubled mentee needing guidance" to "intense, requited crush" and Shiro isn't entirely sure how it happened.  In all honesty, Keith isn't either.  Neither of them are complaining, though, as the days count down until the launch of the Kerberos Mission.





	Learning To Love You

She’s just turned eighteen and she's in one hell of a mess.  

“Happy birthday, Ca—” Shiro starts, noticing her birthday as he looks over her personnel file.

“Keith.” She cuts him off.

“Keith?”

“I'm a boy and my name is Keith.”

Shiro stands corrected.

“I see. Happy birthday, Keith.  This is really one way to celebrate, isn’t it?  How about you tell me why you did it.”

Keith absentmindedly touches his fat lip, staring somewhere at the floor in front of Shiro’s desk.

“I just wanted to go for a ride.  I didn’t think Namouh was going to deck me over it.”

“You did steal his speeder,” Shiro points out.

“I didn’t know it was _his_ speeder,” Keith snaps.  “I thought it was the Garrison’s.  Didn’t damage it anyways.”

Shiro sighs.  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?  You’re going to face consequences, but what you say can mitigate some of it.  I’ll relay it to the disciplinary council.”

“I don’t really give a fuck about the Garrison anymore.  You can kick me out, see what I care,” Keith crosses his arms and fixes Shiro with a glower.

“Do you have anywhere to go if we did expel you?”

He doesn’t answer, only averting his gaze.  His shoulders rise a fraction.  Shiro resists the urge to sigh again.  Another case coming in from the foster system, he assumes.  His record doesn’t show any other incidents, and his grades are decent.  He’s an excellent pilot based on his simulator scores.  Just over halfway through his Garrison career, in his third year.  On the officer track—well, until now that is.  This incident effectively drops him into the bottom 10% of the class.

“Here’s what I’ll do.  I’ll appeal to the disciplinary council on your behalf to keep you here.  You’re not a bad student, Keith, and you have a lot of potential.  You could have been an officer—” Keith makes a derisive noise, still not looking at Shiro— “but it seems you didn’t want that anyways.  You will be punished, which is up to the council, but I’ll see if I can’t get them to let me mentor you.”

Keith’s head jerks up, his eyes laser-like as they lock on to Shiro’s.  “Mentor me?”

“Yes, I’ll work out the details with the council.  For now, you’re going to be on temporary probation,” Shiro glances over the guidelines and makes a note on Keith’s file.  “That means no leaving the base, no simulator time, and you’ll be escorted from class to your bunk.  No communal recreation time.”

With a stormy face, Keith nods reluctantly.

“Permission to be dismissed?” he grunts, half-standing already.

“Permission granted.”

Keith nearly bolts from Shiro’s office, slamming the door behind him.  Shiro rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly.  He can’t fathom why the hell someone would steal a speeder, then get into a knock-down-drag-out brawl with the owner upon returning and just _not care_ about the consequences.  Perhaps his guidance can help Keith find a more stable path in life; though Shiro will admit to never having mentored anyone before, he prides himself on his reputation as a good influence and a good leader.  There’s no reason for Keith to flunk out of the Garrison, especially since it seems like he’s had a rough life so far—Shiro refuses to be a part of the roughness that’s obviously giving Keith some problems.

Dutifully, he notes this all down for the disciplinary council’s meeting on Friday.  Before he closes Keith’s file, though, he takes a moment to correct the name and gender listed for the cadet.

_I’m in your corner, Keith,_ Shiro thinks as he hits the save button.

 

* * *

 

Keith startles awake with sharp rapping on his door.  Disoriented, he jumps out of bed—his roommate’s gone, maybe she got locked out?—and opens the door only to find Lieutenant Shirogane standing there.

“I’m here to escort you to class,” he says, unfazed by Keith’s state of dress.  “Perhaps you should put your fatigues on.  I’ll wait out here.”

Keith nods, dazed, and shuts the door, scrambling to pull on his fatigues as quickly as possible.  He jams his toothbrush in his mouth, hopping on one foot as he tries to pull his pants on, but fails and falls sideways into his bureau, cursing through clenched teeth.

“Are you alright?” Lt. Shirogane calls through the door.

“Fine,” Keith grunts back, angrily stuffing his toothbrush back into the cup by the sink.  “Let’s go,” he wrenches the door open.  The lieutenant is still standing there at attention, the model officer.  It bothers Keith on a petty level.   _Why try that hard, why be so good and perfect?_

They walk in silence to Keith’s class and part with a nod.

 

 

After class, Lt. Shirogane takes Keith straight back to his room silently.  Another nod.  “Shall I come back around 5?”

“For what?” Keith asks, startled.

“Homework?” Lt. Shirogane says with a one-shouldered shrug.

Keith’s brow furrows.  “I’m not having any problems, I don’t need tutoring.”

“Part of mentoring is to make sure you’re spending your time constructively,” he says.  “I’ll be back at 5.”

Keith frowns at the lieutenant’s back as he walks away.   _Guess he’s coming back whether or not I want him to._

 

* * *

 

Most of Shiro’s time with Keith passes in silence.  He just doesn’t know what to say to the cadet.  Sometimes Keith seems lost in his own world, other times he lashes out on a hair trigger and it’s so hard to read him that Shiro gets it wrong a fair number of times and ends up on the receiving end of some truly venomous looks and snippy comments.  There isn’t much for Shiro to do for Keith either, leaving him puzzled—like Keith’s file had indicated, he was a decent student and didn’t need any supervision or encouragement to get his work done.  As long as he was in his room, in class, or in Shiro’s presence, Keith didn’t interact with many people.  Another confrontation to the level of his fight with Cadet Namouh seemed unlikely.

So he sits and watches Keith out of the corner of his eye, only half paying attention to his novel as the cadet works on a problem set for physics.  If there’s one thing Shiro has noticed, it’s Keith’s single-minded determination.  He’s chewing on the end of his pencil, eyes not straying from the numbers written on his paper even when Shiro raises his head fully to look at the cadet straight on.

“Keith,” Shiro says, breaking his concentration.  The boy looks up with guarded eyes.  It’s rare that Shiro interrupts him, and Keith usually reacts with a strange level of suspicion.  “Dinner is almost finished in the mess, we should get some food before there’s none left.”

The boy gives a jerky nod, scribbling down a few more lines before sweeping all his homework into his backpack rather carelessly.  He stands and slings his bag over one shoulder, pausing for Shiro.  A smile touches the corner of his mouth—it’s the first time Keith has actually waited for him rather than leaving Shiro to trail after him like a beleaguered babysitter.

Over food, Shiro prepares himself to tell Keith about the disciplinary council's decision.  The boy across from him seems preoccupied by something other than eating, scowling at his plate as he stabs each undercooked green bean.

"I know you're going to tell me about the decision," he says without looking up, almost reading Shiro's mind.  

"Yes," Shiro responds, hiding his surprise.  He clears his throat.  "You're on probation for the rest of the year—" Keith snorts, he had been expecting that— "and I will continue to mentor you.  The council is concerned for your mental health and they want you to take counseling sessions that might help curb some of this ... misplaced aggression, I think they called it."

Keith's mouth tightens into a thin line and his hand wavers, on the edge of slamming his fork down on the table.  Then he sighs, face going blank, and stabs another bean instead.

"You're also officially under my care for the rest of the year as well.  I will be reporting back to the council monthly on your progress," Shiro finishes, pushing at his own food, waiting for Keith's response.

There's a weighty pause between the two that goes unfazed by the cook shouting last call for food.

"Okay," Keith says flatly.  He finally looks up at Shiro.  He looks completely resigned, and something in Shiro saddens at seeing his spirit broken like this.

"It'll be okay," Shiro says on impulse, needing irrationally to comfort the cadet.  At that, however, Keith angers.

"I don't need your pity," he snarls, pushing away from the table to dump his plate.

" _Fuck, stupid,_ " Shiro hisses to himself, pressing his face into his palms.   _Why did I say that?  Of course he's not the type to want soft reassurance._  He's figuring Keith out more and more, gradually, and the most obvious thing Keith needs is for nobody to see his weaknesses.  Shiro knows he has them—it's not hard to tell when something accidentally hits a sore spot—but can't puzzle out much about them.  The boy is guarded, to say the least.

Keith returns, but doesn't sit back down.  He stands, staring at Shiro until he realizes Keith is waiting for him to go.

"I have more studying to do.  I want to do it in my room," Keith says curtly, picking his backpack up off the floor.  Shiro nods.  He blew it today.

 

* * *

 

_It's not that bad,_ Keith tells himself once he closes his door and sits on the edge of his bed.   _It's not terrible.  Lt. Shirogane is good enough most of the time._  Counseling though—

He fights the urge to kick his backpack across the room.  The last thing he wants is a shrink poking around in his head because he's pathologically angry or some shit.  They're going to try to dig up his history and poke him about gender and that's way beyond the line Keith draws.  Only the absolutely necessary people know about his gender:  the housing officer, his dean, his instructors, his roommate, and now Lt. Shirogane.  Everyone else knows him simply as Keith, no "real" name, no "actual" gender, no questions about what's in his pants.  That's the way it needs to stay.

"It's fine," he mutters aloud, reaching down and pulling his physics homework out of his backpack again.  The numbers distract him until his roommate gets back.  She's pleasant enough, respects Keith's boundaries.  Good enough at reading him to know when he's in the mood to make small talk, and tonight she stays tactfully silent other than the customary "'sup."

_God, I'd love to go to the training deck right now,_ Keith thinks as he stretches back on his bed with a groan.   _A punching bag would be great, but noooooo, I'm on probation and I can't go anywhere without my nanny._

Some part of Keith recognizes this anger and saltiness is what got him in trouble in the first place and it's the exact reason why the disciplinary council is doing this, but he can't bring himself to just fall in like with everything they say like a good little student.  Authority has never had his best interests in mind.  It sits sourly in his stomach, making his mouth twist with disgust.  Finally, bored and left with no recourse, Keith rolls onto his side and falls asleep still dressed in his fatigues.  

 

 

With two weeks left to the school year, Keith has gotten so accustomed to Lt. Shirogane's presence that most of the time he hardly notices the man at his side.  There have been a few times though where anxiety has gripped his chest and squeezed it tight and forced him to look anywhere but the lieutenant but he has no goddamn reason why or when it happens.  It sucks though.

Like right now.  They're in one of the group study rooms like they generally are on Thursday afternoons with Keith plugging away at the latest physics problem set.  The issue is, he can't concentrate on the numbers at all.  Scant minutes ago, he'd glanced up and found the lieutenant looking at him over the top of his book and Keith nearly bolted from the room.  Lt. Shirogane had returned to his book immediately, face completely unreadable, but Keith was shaken.

_What is wrong with me?  Why was he looking at me like that?_  Keith tightens his grip on his pencil, scribbling it back and forth across the paper and running the risk of tearing a gouge in it.   _God this room is claustrophobic._

"Lieutenant—" Keith starts, pressing his pencil very carefully into the paper.

"Call me Shiro," the lieutenant interrupts, lowering his book into his lap.  Keith looks up and meets his gaze, even though it takes everything in his power to not get up and leave right then.  The intensity of the man's gaze is unbearable.

"Shiro," Keith rephrases carefully and the anxiety doubles down with the casual intimacy of using a nickname.  "Permission to be excused, sir."

"What for?"

"I need to go to the bathroom," Keith half-lies.  He does, but not to pee.  He needs to escape.  Shiro tilts his head slightly.

"Permission granted, but you need to come right back.  Don't stop and talk on the way.  Don't get into any trouble."

"Sir, yes, sir," Keith grunts as he pushes past the table and slips out the door.  He power-walks away from the room, rounding the corner and nearly crashing into another cadet, and ducks into the men's restroom to barricade himself in the handicap stall.  

He leans against the wall, banging his head backwards against it.  He’s got a sneaking suspicion what’s happening, but fears forming a coherent thought or, god forbid, saying it out loud, because if he does, it makes it real.  The last time Keith felt like this was in his fourth foster home with his older foster brother.  When the boy looked at him, Keith wanted to run away or fight him and he’d thought it was fear, but then he’d become addicted to the boy’s presence, his attention.  Each word directed his way had made Keith’s stomach tie itself up into delicious knots, and he learned from the movies he’d watch with his foster sister that those feelings meant you liked a boy, just like you were supposed to when you were a little girl.

Coincidentally, that’s when he’d first gotten the inkling that people perceived him the wrong way, that he was really supposed to be a boy and others had to see him that way too.

But this— _don’t say the word!_ —whatever it is, it’s so out of line, so not what Keith needs right now.   _A superior officer?  My mentor?  Really?!_ Completely glossing over the question of sexuality, relationships between officers and cadets were forbidden for obvious reasons, so it could never happen, but it’s impossible that Shiro would reciprocate his feelings; the guy’s so by-the-book that he’d never even entertain those thoughts.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Keith smacks his palm to his forehead.  “Just ignore it,” he growls, grinding his hands into his eyes until he sees sparks.  “It’s a crush, it’s a fucking crush,” Keith admits with resignation right as the bathroom door opens.

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice echoes in the tiled room and Keith feels his heart physically stop.  He fights down a small shriek, swallows, and waits for his heart to restart before opening the stall door.  Shiro is standing by the sinks, one hand still holding the door open.  There’s a trace of concern in his expression.  “You alright?  You were gone for a while.”

“I’m fine,” Keith says dismissively, but Shiro’s concern only becomes more apparent.  When Keith catches sight of himself in one of the mirrors, he realizes why Shiro’s looking at him like that.  The boy in the mirror is pale and there’s a faint sheen of sweat across his forehead and his eyes are spooked-wide.  When he raises a hand to brush his bangs out of his face, his fingers tremble.  He looks like a fucking wreck.

“Really, I’m fine,” Keith insists, tearing his eyes away from his reflection.  Shiro gives a dubious nod but holds the door open for Keith so that he has to duck under his outstretched arm.  Coming within a foot of Shiro shouldn’t make Keith feel the way it does.

 

* * *

 

Shiro is almost certain Keith had a panic attack.  The way the cadet looked and his cagey answers to Shiro’s questions pointed that way.  He didn’t know Keith dealt with anxiety.   _Maybe that’s another thing the counselor can help him with,_ Shiro thinks as he follows Keith down the hall back to the study room.  Keith holds the door long enough for Shiro to grab it; before he gets over to his side of the table, Shiro reaches out and puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder.  The boy freezes for half a second, then looks over his shoulder at Shiro with puzzled, guarded eyes.

“If you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

Keith gives a jerky nod and scoots out of Shiro’s hold, silently resuming his homework.

“I mean it, I’m always here for you.  I’m in your corner,” Shiro insists gently, and Keith’s eyes dart but don’t look up at Shiro.  He nods again, chewing on the inside of his cheek.  

An hour passes in silence, with Shiro glancing up every so often to find Keith surreptitiously watching him out of the corner of his eye, not relaxing at all.   _Do I scare him?_ Shiro wonders sadly.

“Do you want to go back to your room?” Shiro asks.  Keith considers the question for a second, then starts packing his bag up.

“Please,” he says to the floor.  Shiro stands up, dog-earing his page.

When they reach his room, Keith shuts the door with a gruff “good night,” leaving Shiro standing in the hall with an odd sense of sadness draped over his shoulders.  He returns to his own room, chewing on the strange emotions Keith causes him.  Of course, Shiro genuinely cares about Keith’s wellbeing and wants to be a positive role model.  If Keith is _scared of him,_ though, there isn’t much Shiro can do for him.  It puts a little crack in Shiro’s heart.

Sitting Keith down and getting him to talk has a roughly 20% success rate—which makes Shiro doubt the effectiveness of counseling for the boy—so maybe a different environment, where Keith is more at home; maybe he’ll want to talk if that pressure of direct interaction is taken off.   _Where is Keith comfortable?_ Shiro thinks.  The cadet likes the simulator, but that’s the opposite of a relaxed environment.  Obviously he enjoys being off-base, but Shiro doesn’t want to push the boundaries of his probation quite yet (the council might be more lenient closer to the end of the semester, but they’d come down like the hand of god if Keith set foot off the base right now).   _Perhaps the training deck?_

 

 

The next day, after class, Shiro escorts Keith to the training deck.  There’s a couple of cadets on the treadmills, but Shiro shoos them out.  They leave with minimal grumbling.  When Keith enters the deck, glancing around with narrowed eyes, something small and nervous lurches in Shiro’s gut.   _Please let this work._ Shiro looks about and grabs a nearby medicine ball.

“Catch,” he calls, tossing the ball underhand at Keith.  The cadet turns in surprise and catches the ball at the last second.  He quirks an eyebrow.

“It’s good for your shoulders,” Shiro offers, holding his hands out for Keith to throw the ball back; he does, throwing with both hands from the center of his chest.  They establish a rhythm, tossing the 15-pound ball back and forth in comfortable silence.  Keith’s face and arms take on a shine of sweat after ten minutes and he finally passes the ball back at Shiro, waving a hand to say “ _I’m done.”_  Keith rolls his shoulders and does some arm circles, shaking himself out and loosening up.

“Got anything else in mind?” he asks, turning to Shiro as he pushes his short sleeves up to his shoulders.

“A few things.  Think you can manage more arm stuff?”  

Keith looks down at his arms, holding one up as if that provides an explanation.  “Yeah.  I have to do something about these twigs.”

Shiro snorts, and a small grin creeps onto Keith’s face.

By the time the two work their way over to the bench press and Shiro stands over Keith, spotting him, Shiro works up the courage to try to broach the subject.

“Doing better than yesterday?” he asks.  Keith’s expression doesn’t change from his furrowed concentration expression.

“Sure,” he grunts.

“Have anything to deal with anxiety like that?”

Keith screws his eyes shut on a particularly hard rep, arms clearly tiring.  “S’not anxiety, it’s fine.”

“Anything I can do to help with it?” Shiro nearly grabs the bar as Keith’s arms start to tremble.

“I got it,” Keith barks, eyes opening to see Shiro preparing to step in.  He growls with exertion, making one final rep before racking the weight and letting his arms fall to the floor and his eyelids fall shut.  “I got it.”

Shiro’s mouth twists.   _Keith’s talking, but can I get him to open up at all?_

“Here, spot me?” Shiro asks, stepping around to the side of the bench.  Keith holds up one finger, his arm trembling.  His breathing evens out and he finally sits up, ducking around the back of the rack, nodding appreciatively when Shiro adds 50 pounds to the bar.

“How’d you get so strong?” he asks suddenly, eyeing Shiro’s shoulders and chest.

“A lot of gym time,” Shiro responds automatically, then pauses.  That nervous wriggling returns to his gut; he dashes it aside and decides, _fuck it, Keith can know._  “Testosterone, too.”

Keith frowns.  “Roids?  I did _not_ peg you as that kind of guy,” he blurts.

“No, not steroids,” Shiro hurriedly corrects—last thing he wants is rumors flying around— “hormone replacement therapy.”

Keith is silent for a long time, expression darkening.  “I don’t understand.”

Shiro opens his mouth to try to explain, but Keith nearly pushes the bar down onto Shiro’s chest, forcing him to catch the weight with a strained grunt.

“You waited _this long_ to tell me?” Keith snaps.  

“I couldn’t think of an appropriate time to tell you,” Shiro defends himself between reps, but Keith is already on the warpath.  

“I’ve been alone my _entire life_ and I’ve known you for _six weeks_ and you’re only _now—_ ” Keith cuts himself off, shaking his head.  “And out of all the people who could have mentored me, it’s _you;_ why are you doing this—what part of working out is mentoring!” he shouts.

“I wanted to talk to you in an environment where you’re comfortable,” Shiro confesses, breathing hard, trying to rack the weight, but Keith angrily presses down on the bar, forcing him to keep lifting even though his shoulders and biceps are burning.

“Why do you care about me?” Keith snarls, and Shiro can barely figure out if it’s rhetorical or not.

“Please—I can’t do this much longer,” Shiro says through gritted teeth, but Keith refuses and pushes down on the bar again cruelly.  It hurts to see Keith this upset; it hurts that Keith is doing this to him.  “Keith,” Shiro growls in a warning tone.

“No,” he says coldly, denying Shiro’s third attempt to rack the bar.  Shiro’s arms give out and he shouts from the pain.  Keith catches the bar scant inches from Shiro’s chest.  His face is hard and impassive.  Shiro is left panting on the bench, eyes locked on Keith’s, anger and compassion warring in his head.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro says breathlessly.  Sorry for whatever happened to Keith to make him like this.  Sorry for making Keith snap like this.  “But I am going to need an apology from you too.”

Keith’s mouth tightens into a thin line.  His eyes scan Shiro’s face.  Then he racks the bar and the tension drains from his expression.  “I’m sorry,” he says and his voice is _so defeated._  Shiro reaches one aching arm up and clasps Keith’s forearm.  After a long moment, Keith reciprocates.

 

* * *

  

_God, what just happened?_ Keith falls backwards onto his bed, head whirling.  Idly, he reaches up and massages his already-sore shoulder.  He can still feel Shiro’s sweaty, hot palm on his forearm.  Guilt slides down his spine, making him shiver—he shouldn’t have done that to Shiro.  The only person who’s actually looked out for him, who actually seems to give a damn about him.  Keith covers his face with his hands.  “Why am I like this?” he whispers into his palms.

It’s so much easier to be angry than to feel emotions; Keith is aware of this and knows on some level that it’s unhealthy.  Knows on some level it’s a coping mechanism, knows on some level he has to stop doing it all the time.  It’s so deeply embedded in his mentality at this point that it’s almost subsumed his personality.  Keith grinds his palms into his eyes as if that’ll stop his thoughts from taking that dark turn.  Amidst the phosphenes, Shiro’s face appears.  That complicated expression he’d had asking Keith for his apology.  There was some anger there—he had every right to be angry, considering what a dick move Keith had pulled—but there was something there that had looked almost like sadness, too; and compassion, understanding.

_I don’t deserve this,_ Keith thinks.  He finally sits up and looks around the room, then decides to change out of his sweaty clothes and shower.  Hopefully Shiro will be back later to keep Keith company as he works on a lab writeup.  

True to schedule, Shiro comes back at five in his clean fatigues.  Keith already has his backpack slung over his shoulder, though he would only admit on pain of death he’d been waiting for Shiro’s knock on the door.  The silence between them as they walk is no longer awkward like it was at the beginning, but companionable.  They both know they don’t have to talk all the time.  With this unspoken mutual agreement, though, every word becomes all that much more significant.

When Keith looks over the requirements for his lab writeup, then looks at his poorly-recorded data, he groans.  “I would literally rather eject myself out an airlock than do this right now.”

Shiro laughs, which almost catches Keith off guard, and makes his heart do a little jump.  “It can’t be that bad,” he says, and Keith shakes his head.  He pushes the assignment across the table for Shiro to look at.  Shiro’s brow furrows slightly, then he nods.  “I see.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, pulling the paper back across the table.  “Help me.”

Shiro chuckles again.  “I refuse to eject you from the airlock, sorry.”

That brings a grin to Keith’s face.  It feels practically foreign—when was the last time he actually smiled?  “How do I do this though?”

“Just do the best you can with what you have,” Shiro says somewhat unhelpfully.  Keith has to fight the urge to bang his head against the table, instead sighing as he picks up his pen and looks over at his pathetic data again.  He works for hours until Shiro makes him take a break for food, but when Keith returns to the homework he can’t engage his brain anymore.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Keith says, putting his pen down.  Shiro looks up, dog-earing his page.

“Do you need help?”

“No, I just can’t concentrate.”  Keith taps his pencil against his paper.  Shiro watches him for a moment, then nods.

“Alright.  Let’s head out then.”  He stands and holds the door for Keith.  They head down the hallway, passing the communal recreation room on the way.  Keith peers in for a passing second, and sees a group of cadets in the darkened room watching a movie.  His heart aches for a moment, strangely, and he realizes he wants to join them.   _It would be nice to watch a movie._

“Keith,” Shiro calls, stopped ten feet down the hall.  Keith catches up but doesn’t say anything.  He knows Shiro is looking at him.  “Do you miss your friends?”  he breaks the silence finally.

“Don’t really have any,” Keith mumbles.  Shiro hums.  

“...would you like to watch a movie?”

Keith’s head whips around to look at Shiro, a dozen thoughts tumbling through his mind at once.   _Is that allowed?  Will I get in trouble for that?  Will_ **_he_ ** _get in trouble for that?  What are the implications?  No, no, Shiro doesn’t see me like that.  If I try to kiss him I will literally throw myself off the roof.  Jesus Christ._

Shiro must have noticed the stricken look on Keith’s face and quickly backpedals.  “If you don’t want to, I understand.  Hanging out with the officer who’s watching all the time probably isn’t what you want—”

“No, I—” Keith doesn’t know how to phrase it.  “That’s fine.”

“Great,” Shiro sounds relieved.  “We can use the officers’ lounge.  Have anything you want to see?”

“Uh,” Keith flounders, then shakes his head.  “Your choice.”  He thanks the forces of the universe that he doesn’t have to be alone with Shiro in the man’s room.  Not only would that be ridiculously inappropriate, but Keith is pretty sure he would die.

“Are you okay with horror movies?”  Keith nods at the question.  Shiro grins—Keith ignores the flutter in his heart.  “I’ve got a good one.”

 

* * *

 

They’re settled on the couch with a person-sized space and a bowl of popcorn between them.  Keith looks like he’s sitting at attention, carefully focused on the screen.

“It’s 70 years old, but it’s good, I promise,” Shiro says as the title forms on the screen.   _Alien_ feels appropriate, considering they’re all training to be astronauts.  “The effects hold up really well, too.”

“Shiro,” Keith says with a note of caution, “as great as it is you’re interested in the history of it, please shut up and let me watch it.”

Momentarily taken aback, Shiro blinks then bursts out laughing.  This draws an annoyed look from Keith who quickly softens and returns a grin.  He pushes the popcorn towards Shiro and returns to the movie.  A smile lingers on Shiro’s face for a while after that, despite the horror of the movie.

Keith is the type that startles easily, but doesn’t get very scared.  Shiro has the greatest time watching him vacillate from being shocked and almost offended to mild interest or slight cringe between jump scares and gory scenes.  He notices belatedly that with each startle, Keith has scooted ever so slightly closer to him to the point where they’re only six inches apart.

Just after the movie’s climax, as it’s winding down and the music is ominously fading into the background, Keith still stares transfixed at the faint afterimages moving across the plasma screen.  Slowly, Shiro reaches a hand out and grabs Keith’s arm with a louder-than-necessary,

“How did you like it?”

Keith’s fist hits him square in the nose.

Shiro reels, clutching his nose, looking at Keith through watering eyes.  The boy’s expression is torn between terror, anger, and regret, his fist still cautiously raised.

“Shiro I’m sorry—” he blurts.  “You scared me—I—”

“It’s my fault,” Shiro says thickly as blood starts to run.  “I just need a tissue or something.”

Keith vaults over the back of the couch and retrieves the tissue box on the counter across the room.  Gingerly, he hands a wad of them to Shiro.  He watches Shiro stem the bleeding silently for a minute, and Shiro closes his eyes to avoid that intense gaze.

“You really shouldn’t’ve done that,” Keith says with the slightest edge to his voice.  Shiro shakes his head.

“I shouldn’t have.”

“You’re not going to write me up for this, are you?”

Shiro opens his eyes and looks over at Keith.  Fear and anger.  He sees clearly that the cadet is afraid, but covering it up with anger.  “Of course not,” Shiro reassures him.  “I startled you and you reacted in a natural way.  Fight or flight.”

“Fight,” Keith mumbles, and the corner of Shiro’s mouth twitches with a hint of a grin.  The bridge of his nose and eye sockets are pounding; it’s possible he’ll get a black eye or a bruise tomorrow, though it fortunately doesn’t feel broken.  Finally the bleeding stops and Shiro discards the tissues. Keith is still sitting on the couch, just watching him.

“One hell of a punch you’ve got there.”  He offers a hand for Keith to get up off the couch.  Keith takes his hand.  The two-second contact brings a thrilled little grin to Shiro’s face though he squashes it down quickly.  A darker thought flits across the back of his mind and he earmarks it for later review, but doesn’t chase it.

Keith nods awkwardly in response, and Shiro realizes he must have hit a new sore spot.  The cadet avoids looking at Shiro’s face and looks distinctly uncomfortable.  In a gesture of comfort, Shiro puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“It’s alright.  I’ll be fine tomorrow, and nobody will be any the wiser.”

 

 

Shiro is not fine.  His worst fears from last night were confirmed, and he’s looking at two purplish black eyes in the mirror in addition to knowing he has feelings for Keith.  “What a hell of a way to start a morning,” he mutters to himself as he buttons up his fatigues.

Stealthily, he leaves his room and sneaks across the hall to a fellow officer’s room and knocks on the door.  “Mary, I need your help,” Shiro says the second it opens.

“Jesus, Shirogane!” Mary yelps, startled, then steps aside to admit him.  She’s in the middle of tying her hair into a bun.  “What happened?”

“I was on the wrong end of Cadet Kogane’s startle reaction,” Shiro admits.  Mary’s eyes narrow.  She takes a bobby pin out of her hair, tucks in in the corner of her mouth, and gathers her blonde locks up again.  Shiro knows she needs a better explanation.  “Last night I accidentally scared Cadet Kogane, and he reacted with a punch.  It was unintentional and not done out of malice.  He apologized immediately.”

“Okay,” she says slowly.  “And you’re here now, why…?”

“Do you have any concealer?  I can’t go out looking like this,” Shiro asks with just an edge of desperation.  Mary’s mouth twists.

“I have a little, but it’s too light for you.”

“Please?”

“It’ll be obvious you’re wearing concealer,” she warns, but retrieves the makeup anyways.  “Sit.”  Shiro sits in the chair next to her bureau and closes his eyes as Mary tips his head back and applies the concealer.

When she pulls him out of the chair and faces him in front of the mirror, Shiro nods.  Mary was right, it’s obvious his face isn’t _normal_ , but rather than looking like two black eyes it looks like the dark eyebags of a sleepless night.

“This is great, thank you,” he claps Mary on the shoulder.  She waves him off.

“Sure, sure.  I won’t let the disciplinary council get wind of this; I know they’d have your cadet’s head if they found out.”

“I knew I could count on you,” Shiro grins.  Mary gives him a small, facetious salute as she sends him out of her room.

Shiro has to resist the urge to wipe the foreign greasiness of the heavy makeup off his face as he makes his way through the barracks to Keith’s bunk.  His mind turns to that dark, earmarked thought from last night which he later figured out was attraction.  It had been that fleeting urge to pull Keith in closer, to feel more of his skin and warmth.  It had been the hardest to push that down.  The deeper Shiro had explored it, the deeper he found that desire went.  Like a vein of ore, the further he mined, the more each minute in Keith’s company had crystallized and turned into something precious, laid the seed of attraction deep in his mind.

_This is so bad,_ Shiro worries his bottom lip as he turns the corner to Keith’s hall.   _This is so inappropriate; so fucking inappropriate._   _I need to step down as his mentor._ **_I don’t want to step down as his mentor._ ** _I really have to._

The war in Shiro’s head between _should_ and **_want_** falls silent the instant Keith’s door opens.  Shiro’s fist hovers in the air.  He hadn’t even knocked yet.  Keith’s eyes are guilty-wide.  His tongue flicks out over his lips nervously.

_Were you_ “...waiting for me to open the door?” Shiro near-whispers, realizing too late he vocalized that thought.  Keith looks cornered.

“Thought I heard you knock already,” Keith says with a dry voice, eyes not leaving Shiro’s.  Shiro doesn’t need to mention the hallway is dead silent.  Keith’s roommate is gone.  

“Ready for the last week of classes?” Shiro breathes.  God, Keith’s eyes are huge.  He licks his lips again.

Keith nods.  “Yeah.”  They ignore the way his voice breaks.  A heavy moment falls between them, teetering on the edge of something huge and dangerous.

“Shall we?” Shiro finally murmurs.  Keith sucks in a deep breath, rocks up on his toes, eyes half closed; for a second his hands rise and Shiro feels a fleet breath across his lips.  Then Keith falls back onto his heels, drops his chin.

“Yeah,” he says again, voice steadier, deeper.  Shiro exhales, puts a hand on Keith’s back to guide him forward.  Neither of them speak on the way to Keith’s class.

 

* * *

 

Keith leaves Shiro at the door to the classroom and immediately smacks his forehead against his desk, clutching his backpack between his knees.   _Fuck fuck fuck fuck I had the chance, why did I do that, did I imagine that, what the hell just happened._

The entire class, the professor picks on Keith for his lack of engagement in the lesson.  His mind is a thousand miles away, out in the desert, yelling at the sky and kicking the dust and puzzling through whatever the hell is happening in his heart.  Under the desk, his hands clutch around the straps of his backpack like the handlebars of a speeder, longing to feel the rush of wind through his hair and sensation of thrilled fear as he pushes the limits of safety.   _A little recklessness never did anyone wrong once in a while._ Recklessness—Shiro’s lips are that perfect kind of danger.

Keith’s face actually grimaces at the thought and he beats it off with a stick.  That’s the sort of thing that will poison whatever he has with Shiro, get him kicked out of the Garrison, get him a reputation as a whore for good grades, an easy lay.  But _oh god_ he wants it so badly.  That moment where he’d nearly done it, Shiro’s face was seared into Keith’s retinas.  Eyes heavy-lidded and dark, mouth barely parted; everything that screamed _kiss me._  

After class, Shiro is waiting by the door as usual, acting as if nothing had happened out of the ordinary that morning.  Keith’s heart sinks into the vicinity of his toes.   _He didn’t want it, he’s not going to want it.  He knows better; he’ll never._

Out of habit, they head to the mess hall for early lunch.  They walk in silence.  Keith steals a glance at Shiro and finds his expression sober.  Something’s wrong.  He doesn’t prod, though; Shiro will tell him if it’s necessary.  Only once they retrieve trays of food and take their customary seats at the edge of the hall does Shiro sigh.

“Keith, I have to tell you something.”

Keith resists the urge to respond with “no shit, Sherlock,” and instead nods, keeping his eyes on his plate.  He can’t eat.  The nerves are too strong.  He knows what Shiro’s going to say; that Keith acted inappropriately this morning, that he’s going to face consequences, that Shiro won’t be his mentor anymore.

“I got assigned to pilot the first manned mission to Kerberos.”

“What.”

Keith looks up at Shiro, mind blank except for shock.  “What do you mean?” he repeats.  Shiro’s eyes sadden just a little.

“I’m piloting a three-person crew to Pluto’s moon Kerberos; the mission leaves in six months,” Shiro says levelly.

Keith swallows and nods again, processing.  Shiro should be overjoyed.  It must be an honor to be the pilot to take the first humans to the edge of the solar system, why does he look so sad?

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks eventually.  “You should be happy about this.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” Shiro says, his tone oddly cagey.  “It’ll hit me soon enough, then I won’t be able to wait for it to happen.”

“Great,” Keith forces as much enthusiasm as he can into his voice.  He puts a small smile on his face, hoping it doesn’t look as fake as it feels.  “You’ll do great.”

Shiro mirrors his smile.  “Thank you, Keith.”

Keith ignores the surge in his stomach when Shiro says his name.

 

* * *

 

Shiro knows he shouldn’t feel this melancholy about piloting the Kerberos mission.  Yet here he is.  Pining over something that won’t happen for another half a year.  He already misses Keith, and he’s kicking himself for it.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.  Piloting the Kerberos mission will be the single most important thing he’ll ever do for humanity, and here his emotions are thinking it’s _worse_ because he’ll miss his crush.

After Shiro escorts Keith to his room for the evening, he retreats to the gym, allowing his mind to empty as he puts in miles on the treadmill.  Once he’s worked up a good sweat, he mops his brow and grabs resistance bands, thinking of how they’ll be a daily fixture in his life on the way to Kerberos to combat zero-gravity muscle wasting.  The ship he’s piloting will be state-of-the-art, designed to support long-term human habitation.  Even with the advances in inter-solar system travel, it will take four months to get to Kerberos traveling near the speed of light.  The autopilot programming will be robust, but Shiro will still need to take the ship safely through the asteroid belt.  He’s meeting with the two scientists who will make up his crew next week.

Sam and Matt Holt.  They’re distinguished in their research on planetary formation; an ace father-son pair leading the crest of the wave.  When the mission opened up applications to go to Kerberos—just after Shiro had been selected—he was told the two jumped at the opportunity, especially after hearing of Shiro’s skills.

He’s flattered, honestly, though he has no clue how he’s going to get along with the Holts.  Hopefully well, because it could be a very long year if their personalities are incompatible.

It would be easy to travel to Kerberos with Keith.  Prickly though he can be, they get along exceptionally well.

Shiro lets go of the resistance band.  It snaps sharply against the floor, drawing a few looks.  Shiro presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.  “I’ve _got_ to stop thinking like this,” he mutters to himself.  “Focus on the task at hand.”

 

 

The last week of class passes in a careful, tense balance of distance and civility between Keith and Shiro.  They sit with a full couch cushion between them when they watch movies, never letting glances linger too long.  Conversation stays deliberately neutral.

The day Shiro departs for training and preparation for the Kerberos mission, he stops by Keith’s room, hesitating just a half a second before knocking.  Keith’s roommate opens the door, her eyes flickering up and down Shiro’s form as if scanning before turning and nodding once, presumably at Keith.  The boy slips out the door a moment later, standing silently in front of Shiro.  It’s so much like the moment a scant week ago, that Shiro feels his breath catch in his throat.

“I ship out for mission prep today,” he says quietly.  Keith sucks in a breath.

“I heard,” he says, bouncing on his toes.

“I’m going to miss you,” Shiro confesses.  Keith’s eyes go huge, lips parting ever so slightly.  

“I’m going to miss you, too,” Keith breathes.  His hands rise, hovering hesitantly around Shiro’s shoulders.  He leans in ever so slightly.  Shiro wants this _so badly_.

“I…” he trails off, then surges forward and grabs Keith in a rib-crushing hug.  The cadet huffs a surprised breath, but quickly wraps his arms around Shiro’s neck, burying his face in his shoulder.  This is so much more than a friendly goodbye hug between mentor and mentee.  They both know it.  There’s so much unspoken between them, and Shiro feels it like a crushing weight on his chest that has nothing to do with Keith’s strong grip.

Keith’s hair smells like shampoo.  So smooth against Shiro’s face.  The feeling of having the cadet’s warm, firm body wrapped up in his arms is inappropriately delicious in a way that urges him to never let go.

It takes a long, heavy moment before the two part.  Shiro has to school his expression into relative neutrality before looking Keith in the face again.  Keith’s gaze stays averted, his hands lingering on Shiro’s biceps.  He takes a deep breath.

“Good luck.  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”  Keith’s eyes are shining when he finally looks up at Shiro, the line of his mouth so firmly set it’s clear he’s holding back tears.  Shiro gives him a soft smile, working to keep his emotions in check at the same time.

“Of course,” he says.  The finality of the situation falls on them like a thick blanket.  

_His eyes are purple,_ Shiro realizes distantly as Keith's eyes flutter closed.

Shiro's eyes close reflexively as he feels warm breath on his face.

_Oh._

_His lips are soft._

In the flash it takes for Shiro to wrap his head around the fact that _Cadet Keith Kogane, my mentee on whom I’ve been crushing for months, is kissing me;_  Keith is already drawing away.

“No, wait—” Shiro murmurs, one hand falling to the small of Keith’s back, the other to smooth his hair over the nape of his neck— “please…”

Shiro draws Keith in for another kiss.  He feels Keith’s arms lock behind his back, but that barely matters when their lips and noses are touching, Shiro’s thumb stroking over Keith’s cheek.  Their lips meet again and again in a languid series of unhurried kisses, each sending electric sparks shivering down Shiro’s nerves.

Far down the hall, a door opens.  Keith pauses.  Shiro pulls back.  Keith leans forward for one final kiss before extricating himself from the embrace.

“Stay safe,” he whispers.  Shiro can only nod.  If he opens his mouth, he’ll do something stupid like make a promise.

And before his will to leave can grow any weaker, Shiro turns and walks down the hall, feigning the most confident commander-of-an-historic-space-exploration-mission stride he possibly can at the moment.  He doesn’t look over his shoulder when he hears Keith’s door close behind him.

Shiro can only hope he’ll get to kiss Keith again once he’s back again on Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo I've had this sitting in my files for months now and just got around to tacking an ending on it. This might get a smutty post-Kerberos sequel if I can find the time.


End file.
